


The Knit One Purl One Job

by Nellied



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Knitting, Light Angst, M/M, Multi, POV Alec Hardison, Pre-OT3, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22152193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nellied/pseuds/Nellied
Summary: "It started with a beanie hat, roughly pulled down over his ears as he was putting the finishing touches on a new set of fake IDs for them all."Eliot knits Hardison a hat. Somehow, things spiral from there, and before long half the team knits. Hardison doesn't get it, until suddenly he does.
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Eliot Spencer, Alec Hardison/Parker, Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer, Sophie Devereaux/Nathan Ford
Comments: 136
Kudos: 424





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This is my first work in this fandom, and it's 100% a by-product of me getting into Leverage and knitting at roughly the same time. It's self-indulgent and the romance is kinda understated, but I enjoyed writing it - hope you enjoy reading it too!

It started with a beanie hat, roughly pulled down over his ears as he was putting the finishing touches on a new set of fake IDs for them all.  
  
Actually, that's a lie. It started with a stalled snowmobile and Hardison's teeth chattering over the comms and Nate cursing up a storm because of _course_ we hotwired the snowmobile without fuel in it, Parker, you're gonna have to jump in for Hardison, how's your Swedish?  
  
But for all intents and purposes, it started with the beanie hat, two days later, a soft, dark blue affair that sat snug against Hardison's forehead.  
  
"What the hell, Parker?" Hardison asked, spinning round to glare at... Eliot?  
  
The hitter said nothing, just raised an eyebrow, reached out to adjust the hat slightly, then nodded approvingly.  
  
He made a move to leave, and Hardison scrambled to catch him before he turned back to the knives he was cleaning, or whatever the hell he was doing before he decided to play dress-up.  
  
"Eliot, what is this?"  
  
The hitter frowned, as if that should be obvious.  
  
"It's a hat."  
  
Hardison rolled his eyes. So he was gonna be like that.  
  
"I know what a hat is, Eliot. What I wanna know is _why_ I get a hat?"  
  
Eliot shrugged.  
  
"You were cold. The other day. Ergo, hat."  
  
Oh. That.  
  
He'd said already, it was fine. Eliot had been tied up, quite literally, Parker was needed to play Hardison's role, and Nate and Sophie were already distracting the mark, so they couldn't just disappear to rescue him from some mountainside. None of them had been free, it was as simple as that.  
  
Only Eliot didn't seem to think so, which was stupid. The hitter appeared to have taken it as some kind of personal failure, as if getting jumped by Swedish hitmen was something you could predict ahead of time.  
  
Hardison sighed.  
  
"Look, I already told you, I'm fine. It's fine."  
  
But Eliot wasn't buying it.  
  
"You were out for almost two hours, and when you got back you were hypothermic, Hardison. Take the damn hat."  
  
He was fixing Hardison with a stare that conveyed a silent "or else", so Hardison shrugged and left the hat on. No skin off his nose, if Eliot wanted to be a mother-hen about it.  
  
The hitter turned to leave, for real this time, but as he was halfway out the door, something else occurred to Hardison.  
  
"Eliot?"  
  
He stopped, clearly irritated.  
  
"What now?"  
  
"Where did you get the hat from? We haven't exactly had time free to go shopping."  
  
Something Sophie had been _very_ annoyed to find out. If she found out that Eliot had snuck out to go shopping without her...  
  
"Knitted it," Eliot said, deadpan, as if that didn't raise a thousand more questions, before sweeping imperiously out of the room.  
  
Hardison frowned. Eliot was joking, right?  
  
He pulled the hat off to get a better look at it and shook his head. No way had Eliot knitted that. Nuh-uh. It was... fancy, for lack of a better word, with some kind of braided pattern on it. Eliot had bought it somewhere, he just didn't want to incur Sophie's wrath, surely.  
  
Then again, there didn't seem to be any kind of label on it that would suggest it was store-bought, and more than that, it just had a feel to it. It felt hand-made, in some weird way that Hardison couldn't quite explain.  
  
It was the same kind of hat that Nana had made him wear as a kid, he realized, and that should have been an instant turn-off, but for some reason, he found himself pulling the hat on again, moving to catch his reflection in the window.  
  
It looked good.  
  
It was just the right side of hipster, fitted him like a dream and - Hardison realized with a sinking feeling - was really, _really_ cozy.  
  
"Dammit, Eliot."  
  
A faint giggling filtered down from the vent above him. He frowned.  
  
"Parker? That you?"  
  
She hesitated for a few seconds.  
  
"No?"  
  
Hardison raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Okay, yes, it's me, you can stop doing that with your face."  
  
He didn't ask how she could tell. Parker just knew these things, somehow. He stopped.  
  
"Parker, did you know that Eliot could knit?"  
  
A muffled rustling could be heard from above - Parker shaking her head, he presumed.  
  
"No, me neither," he murmured. "This sucks. Or it doesn't suck, which is the problem."  
  
Parker said nothing, but it was an inquisitive kind of silence.  
  
"If it sucked, I could just not wear it and nobody would have to know," he explained. "But this is genuinely nice, and I just know I'm gonna wear it and Eliot's gonna be all... _Eliot_ about it, and everyone'll know."  
  
Silence.  
  
"Parker, you gotta help me out here."  
  
A hum from the vent this time, mostly sympathetic, but with an undertone that Hardison didn't quite trust.  
  
"Hey, that was your scheming hum, why are you doing the scheming hum?"  
  
No answer.  
  
"Parker, what are you scheming? Parker!"  
  
But she was gone, leaping down from the vent with a deliberately loud thump before dashing off downstairs, making a carefully calculated racket.  
  
Hardison made towards the door to run damage control, but it was too late.  
  
"Guys, guys, guys, Eliot knitted Hardison a hat!"  
  
And damn it all, Sophie was _cooing_ , and Nate's voice had gone all weird, like he didn't want anyone to know how sweet he found it all, and there was Eliot, with his smile and his charm, pretending like it was no big deal, I just did it like my momma taught me, yadda, yadda, yadda.  
  
Hardison rolled his eyes and pulled the hat off. Immediately his head felt colder, his ears less protected. A chill ran down the back of his neck - was there a draft in here that he'd just never noticed?  
  
He heard footsteps on the stairs - Sophie, by the sound of it, coming to see Eliot's handiwork for herself. And - oh - Nate was with her, too. Great. Just peachy.  
  
Hardison bit his lip, missing the warmth. In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought, finally, and pulled the hat back on.  
  
If he had to stifle a smile as the wool slipped back over his ears - well, nobody needed to know that, did they?


	2. Chapter 2

One unexpected side-effect of the whole team knowing about Eliot knitting was that random woolen items kept popping up in Nate's apartment.

They were small things, and Eliot never commented on them. Instead, they'd just be there one morning. A cushion cover here. A washcloth there. Some coasters, knitted in a coarse, chunky yarn. One day Parker rocked up with Bunny in tow, only Bunny was rocking a fluffy, plum-colored scarf and a matching hat, ear holes and all.

Eliot never said a word, so neither did the team, and that would have been that, if it weren't for Monica Wilson's Monday night Stitch 'n' Bitch.

"I told you, that's all her calendar says! Stitch 'n' Bitch, 8 pm! How the hell should I know what that means?" Hardison threw his hands up in the air.

"Okay, okay, okay, that's fine, we can work with this," Nate's voice came through the comms loud and clear. "Stitch 'n' Bitch. Could be crafts-related? Maybe some kind of sewing circle-"

"She knits," Eliot interrupted, waving a sheet of paper at Hardison. On it was... some sort of diagram? 

"Knitting charts," Eliot clarified. "This here's a classic Fair Isle."

Hardison squinted at the chart. It looked like some kind of analog game of Minesweeper, if you asked him. But Eliot seemed certain, and that was good enough for him. He pulled out his phone, and sure enough-

"Yeah, she follows a bunch of knitting accounts on Instagram, knitting blogs, the works."

"Mm-hm," Eliot agreed, typing something into her desktop computer. "Has a Ravelry account too. And guess who she's friends with?"

Turns out Monica Wilson was in a knitting group with Mary Monroe, wife of the incredibly sketchy Adam Monroe. It was the only connection they'd managed to draw between the two of them.

"We need to know what they're talking about at those meet-ups," Nate said, thoughtfully, and Hardison knew exactly what was coming.

"I don't see why it has to be me," Parker protested, once Nate was done outlining the plan. "Eliot's the one who knows how to knit already."

Nate made a noise.

"No, no, no. Big man knitting? That's unusual. Draws unwanted attention. Quiet new neighbor knitting? Much less conspicuous. Plus look at the group members. All women. Maybe it's a ladies' night type thing."

He had a point, Hardison had to admit. Still, there was one small issue, which Parker was quick to point out.

"I don't know how to knit."

There was a moment of silence and Hardison could almost hear Nate's smirk over the comms.

"Good job I know a guy."

Eliot agreed, albeit after a _lot_ of grumbling, once they were back at the apartment they were renting. It took him an hour and a half to teach Parker the basics, twenty whole minutes of which were spent persuading her not to stab him with the needles. Fifty minutes after that, she was just about confident enough to do it without Eliot there to fix her mistakes.

"There! You see? You've got this!"

Parker made a face, and Eliot shook his head.

"No, see, look how neat that last row was! And you're going way quicker now!"

The thief pouted, obviously not convinced.

"I hate every minute of this. It's stressful and terrifying. How can anybody find this relaxing?"

Eliot chuckled.

"You just wait until you get into a rhythm with it. Then you'll get it."

Parker just narrowed her eyes mistrustfully. Hardison swallowed. He hoped she could pull it off. If she rocked up to the Stitch 'n' Bitch unable to stitch, she'd have to go hard on the bitching, and that was always a gamble.

His concerns were ill-founded. Five hours later, Parker was back, with the information they needed, comprehensive schematics of the house and one rather lumpy-looking, half-finished, bright green snood.

"I got into a rhythm, I think!" she crowed, waving it at them all triumphantly, "Look how much I did!"

Eliot nodded sagely, while Hardison tried to look suitably impressed, and then Nate and Sophie were asking Parker for details and the knitting was abandoned in a heap in the corner.

The rest of the con went off without a hitch, thanks to Parker's work and before long they were kicking back with drinks to celebrate.

"I'm gonna turn in," Sophie said, shooting Nate a meaningful look, "Early morning tomorrow." She stood to leave.

"Uh, yeah, I'm also worn out. Very tired," Nate supplied, adding a fake yawn that was fooling nobody before joining her.

Parker shook her head as the door closed behind them.

"They should just say if they're having sex. We wouldn't bother them."

Hardison chuckled.

"I guess not everyone's as sensible as you about it."

She frowned.

"Just seems like a lot of effort."

Hardison shrugged, and the three of them sat talking for a while, polishing off the last of the popcorn. Before long Hardison found himself yawning.

"I might go to bed too. Sophie wasn't wrong about the early morning. You guys good?"

Eliot nodded, and Parker gave him a double thumbs up, so he left. Five minutes later, he reached for his laptop, only to find he'd left it in the lounge. Groaning, he headed back, but as he was about to push the door open, something about the voices on the other side of it stopped him short. 

Eliot and Parker were talking in low voices, much more animatedly than before. With a mix of guilt and curiosity, Hardison leaned in to listen.

"No, it's meant to do that. Gives it the right shape."

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

A pause.

"But what about the extra stitch?"

Another pause.

"What extra stitch?"

"That one right there."

Yet another pause, this one decidedly more confused.

"Shit, that should _not_ be there. Hold on, lemme just..."

Then the sound of needles clicking, and Parker scuffing her foot gently against the hardwood floor.

"There we go, better?"

A happy kind of noise from Parker, then a longer silence, punctuated by the occasional absent-minded hum.

Finally the thief broke the silence.

"I still don't like knitting," she said, almost petulantly.

Hardison didn't need eyes on Eliot to know _exactly_ what face he was making.

"I don't, it sucks" Parker protested, then paused for a second. "But I might stay and do a few more rows. If that's alright."

Eliot chuckled.

"Sure. Course, if you're gonna be a while, I might have to join you. That okay?"

Parker must have nodded, because then Hardison could hear the sound of a bag zipper, and before long Parker's focussed hum was joined by a steady click-click-click from Eliot's direction.

It was a nice kinda sound, Hardison thought, with a smile. Homey.

Then he realized how sappy that sounded and shook his head in disgust. Just how tired was he? 

The laptop could wait, he decided. He needed the sleep more than he needed to download the latest episode of Doctor Who.

As he turned to leave, he could have sworn he heard a muffled "Night, Hardison".


	3. Chapter 3

The day Eliot turned up to a con with Parker's snood wrapped round his neck was a difficult day for Hardison.

On the one hand, he really wanted to make fun of Eliot for it. It was lime green, after all, and they were in Arizona. In _August_. 

But then Sophie shot him a warning look, inclining her head ever-so-slightly to the left. He snuck a casual glance, only to catch Parker staring at Eliot's new neckwear with a look of barely-suppressed delight that made Hardison's stomach do something weird.

He met Sophie's eyes again, with an almost imperceptible nod.

_Course I won't._

Nate, of course, didn't get the memo, or possibly he just wanted to be an assshole about it.

"Eliot, Eliot, Eliot, what is _that?_ It's like Kermit curled up round your neck and died!"

To his credit, Eliot didn't rise to the bait.

"Just run the damn briefing, we ain't got all day."

And that was that. They did the job and Eliot wore the scarf, with an expression that was equal parts menace and pride. Nate made sure to roll his eyes theatrically whenever he saw it, but behind his back, Parker was practically glowing.

It was, in retrospect, a watershed moment. Now there were two of them, Eliot's knitting, which had never been a secret per se, but had certainly never spilled over into their day to day lives, became much more visible, almost aggressively so.

Whereas Eliot-the-solo-knitter was tight-lipped about his projects, Eliot-the-social-knitter liked to chat about whatever he was working on, asking Sophie for opinions on colors, or getting Parker over to decide what buttons he should go for. It drove Nate nuts, and Hardison suspected that's why Eliot did it.

Somehow, Parker was in her element. Despite her regular complaints about how stressful and non-relaxing knitting was, Hardison would sometimes now turn round mid-con to find her half-tangled in yarn, counting furiously under her breath. 

Before long, Lucille was full of craft paraphernalia, her door-pockets overflowing with odd bits of yarn and measuring tapes and those weird tiny needles. Hardison pretended not to notice, and in return, he woke up one morning to find a little knitted Yoda on top of his laptop. 

It was unmistakably Parker's. While Eliot tended to go for sensible knits in muted, no-nonsense colors, Parker seemed to favor more fanciful patterns in all manner of exotic hues, often finished off with whimsically-placed pompoms or tassels. It was a very distinctive style - Hardison didn't need Eliot to tell him that.

Parker's stuff certainly livened up the place. Eliot's charcoal grey place mats and mocha-colored coffee cozies were useful, sure, but it was Sophie's electric blue leg warmers, or the comically long orange and pink scarf Nate found himself reluctantly draped in which really made Hardison grin. They were fun, and Parker's joy when anybody wore her stuff more than made up for any fashion faux-pas.

Of course, all the knitting skills in the world won't help you when you're kidnapped by the mob.

"Look, I hate to say it, but Nate was right. The best thing we can do is wait and let him handle things, wait until he needs us. They trust his judgement already. They'll let her go."

Sophie made a face at Eliot, then sighed.

"I guess I just don't like being stuck here. If I'm out there, I can _do_ something. Here..."

She trailed off with a vague gesture, but Hardison understood.

_Here, I'm useless._

He rubbed his face and turned back to the monitors. Still nothing, on any of the feeds. God, he was tired. He bet the others were too.

He glanced back, just for a second. Sure enough, Eliot was showing all the signs of an inexpertly concealed eye strain headache, and Sophie almost looked rumpled - which didn't sound like much on paper, but when _Sophie Devereaux_ looked anything less than stunning, you knew things were bad.

Hardison sighed.

"It's been hours. You guys should try and take a break. Get some rest, eat some food. I'll let you know if there's anything."

Sophie and Eliot looked like they were about to protest. Hardison rolled his eyes.

"You're no good if you're squinty and tired from staring at a surveillance feed all night. You gonna go out and hit people like that? Or you," he added, turning to Sophie, "you gonna go grift looking like that? I run on caffeine, but you two need a break if you're going to be any use to Nate at all."

Neither of them looked entirely convinced.

"I promise I'll shout the moment anything happens," Hardison added, more gently. "You can keep your comms in. Just take a break from staring at the screen, man. Half an hour, c'mon."

Thankfully, this seemed to persuade them, and five minutes later Hardison was still glued silently to the monitor, but Sophie and Eliot were sat at the kitchen counter, talking in low tones that Hardison couldn't quite pick up. Then silence, punctuated by a familiar clicking sound.

Huh. Well it was supposed to reduce stress, a small, detached part of Hardison's brain thought. Good thinking, Eliot.

Then his full attention was back on the warehouse, scanning for any sign that Parker was still in there, was still - 

Hardison cut that thought off right there, because Parker was still alive. She wasn't allowed not to be. Nope, nah, nuh-uh, not today, thank you very much.

Time passed, and soon Eliot was tapping him on the shoulder, offering to take over for a bit, and Hardison was shaking his head, because there was no way on God's green earth-

But then Eliot was physically dragging him, spluttering and indignant, away from the monitors and bundling him into one of the kitchen chairs, before heading back over to the screens.

Sitting opposite, Sophie shrugged and nudged a coffee across the table towards him. Defeated, he took it, and for a few minutes they just sat like that, Hardison sipping at the coffee, Sophie watching him in silence.

Then she reached for something - oh, hey, she found that half-finished fingerless glove Parker lost - and before Hardison could really register what was going on, the clicking started up again, and he was left watching the deft back and forth of needle, yarn, fingers, repeat. Sophie was much quicker than either Eliot or Parker.

She stopped when she realized that Hardison was staring and rolled her eyes with an impatient huff.

"Oh, come on, you too? I go undercover as a viscountess for a living, you honestly think I don't know how to knit?"

Hardison had no idea whether knitting was part of the British aristocrat starter pack. Still, he was willing to let it slide. If Sophie wanted to finish off Parker's abandoned mitts, that was her business.

He turned back to his coffee, draining the last of it, but the knitting noises didn't start up again. Instead, Sophie was watching him, with a strange look, like she was about to tell him something.

He gave her time. Whatever it was, she could take it at her own pace.

Finally, hesitantly, she spoke.

"My grandmother taught me, when I was just a little girl. I used to go round to her house with my wool."

It wasn't much, but Hardison could tell from the quiet affection in her voice that it was real - perhaps the only real thing Sophie had ever told him about herself.

Possibly the only real thing she'd told _anybody_ , he realized with a start. No wonder she looked skittish.

He caught her eye with a tiny smile, just enough to reassure her. 

_I won't tell anyone. Your secret's safe._

She smiled back, and it was at that moment that their comms crackled back to life and Eliot shouted at them from the other room and Nate was shouting too, and there was Parker on the line, thank God, and everything was go once again, because they had a pair of thieves to rescue!

Hardison let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Parker was alive. They were gonna go rescue her, then they were gonna bust the bad guys and everybody was gonna come home at the end of the day.

He was on his feet already, and so was Sophie, hurrying over to the monitors. The glove was nearly forgotten, knocked to the floor as the grifter got up, her mask of professional competence snapping back into place quicker than blinking.

It was Hardison who stooped to pick it up.

The quiet, nervous Sophie who knitted with her grandma might be gone for the time being, replaced by the calm, confident grifter they knew and needed in order to do what they did every day. But Hardison wasn't sure that that Sophie was gone for good, so he made sure to leave the knitting somewhere visible.

If Sophie didn't want to carry it on, that would be fine.

And if, as he suspected, Parker woke up one morning with a finished pair of fingerless gloves folded impeccably neatly beside her bed, that would be even better.

But first things first, rescue time.

Hardison squared his shoulders, put on his own professional mask and slid his earpiece back in.

_Let's go get them._


	4. Chapter 4

Sophie sometimes joined Eliot and Parker's weird craft evenings now. Hardison knew this because he'd bumped into them all one evening, and they'd all just turned and stared silently at him until he backed away slowly and left them to it.

The hats, gloves and scarves kept coming, and as winter set in, Hardison found himself increasingly thankful for it. At some point, Nate's couch gained a throw blanket. Eliot acquired a cardigan. Some cushions popped up around the place.

Sophie's creations were different to Parker's and Eliot's, Hardison soon noticed - prettier and fiddlier, often with little lacy bits, or intricate patterns. They were delicate in a way that Eliot's practical knits and Parker's flights of fancy generally weren't.

Still, that ought to have been the extent of it. Sophie knitted. Parker knitted. Eliot knitted. Hardison and Nate didn't.

Little did he know, that was about to change.

"Hey, Hardison, you got a minute?"

The hacker spun round in his chair, immediately on the defensive.

"If this is about your phone, I can explain-"

Nate cut him off.

"No, no, it's not ab- wait, what did you do to my phone?"

Damn. Hardison backpedalled hard.

"Nothing bad, nothing bad. I ... upgraded it! With my hacker skills! You are now untraceable!"

Not entirely a lie. He'd also changed all the notification sounds to the TARDIS noise, and made it so that typing "Eliot" autocorrected to "Smelliot", but Nate didn't need to know that just yet.

Nate narrowed his eyes, then sighed.

"I don't trust that for a second, but I'm gonna let it go, because I need your help with something. And you _cannot_ tell the others."

Hardison frowned. 

"Is this tech-related, or-"

"Not tech-related," Nate interrupted, looking over his shoulder shiftily."It's... look, just promise you won't say anything."

Hardison hesitated, but what choice did he have?

"Sure thing, man. Not a word."

Even so, Nate paused for a second or two, just enough time for Hardison to run through the options, trying to work out what could possibly have the mastermind so worked up.

Hardison was a bona fide genius. The list of possibilities was long. 

What Nate actually said was not on that list.

"I need you to teach me how to knit."

_Wait, what?_

Nate repeated himself, and Hardison realized he must have said that last bit out loud.

"I heard you the first time, brah."

And now Nate was looking at him all expectant. Great.

He shook his head vehemently.

"No. No way. Hell to the no."

"But- "

"Nope, no buts! I am _not_ teaching you to knit! You could have asked _literally_ anyone else on the team, and-"

Nate cut him off with a shushing noise.

"No, no, no, it needs to be you."

Hardison frowned, and Nate rushed to explain.

"Look, I'm not learning for the hell of it. I had this idea that we could maybe knit codes into stuff, use it to leave messages. There's basically just two stitches you do, so we could use morse, or binary. Since you're our code guy, I guess it just made sense for you to do it. Reckon you could come up with something _way_ cleverer than me."

Hah. Nice touch with the flattery, but Hardison knew a dodge when he saw one.

"Why don't you want the others to know?"

Nate's eyes widened comically.

"I mean, I wouldn't say that-"

"You made me swear not to tell them anything."

He shrugged with a practiced nonchalance.

"I just figured a secret code works best when it's _secret_ , you know? Keep it as a surprise fallback. Gives us an edge."

Hardison was pretty sure that wasn't how secret codes worked, but more importantly-

"You do know I don't know how to knit?"

Nate made a dismissive gesture.

"I bet you could google a few tutorials. You pick things up pretty quick, right?"

Incredibly quick, and Nate knew it, but he was dodging again. Flatter the mark. Grifting 101. He shook his head.

"Cut it out. I know you're hiding something. I just thought we were past all that. "You don't con your team" ring any bells?"

Nate had the good grace to look ashamed, at least. Hardison raised an unimpressed eyebrow and waited for him to explain himself.

The silence stretched out, long and awkward.

Finally, reluctantly, Nate spoke. He spoke quickly and quietly, as if every word hurt.

"I haven't been sleeping great recently. Bad memories. Thought it might help, didn't want the others to know."

Ah. And by "the others", Nate meant Sophie. Great.

"I tried teaching myself off the internet," he added, looking miserable, "but it just won't go in."

Nate looked defeated, and now Hardison felt like an asshole.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize-"

He caught himself. Of course you didn't realize, Nate's clearly been bottling this up. Try again, Hardison.

"You okay, man? You know, if you ever wanna talk-"

Nate gestured to cut him off.

"Thanks, but I'm good. Really. I just thought - ah, never mind," Nate interrupted himself, "Forget I asked."

Well that wouldn't do.

Nate turned to leave and Hardison sucked in a breath, hoping he wasn't going to regret his next words.

"I'll do it. I'll do some research and I will teach you to knit."

And he did.

It took weeks, mind you. Weeks of YouTube tutorials and Wikihow articles and late-night Skype calls to Nana, because what the hell does SL1PWYIF even _mean_? But in the end, he worked it out, just enough to talk Nate through it. The mastermind picked it all up remarkably quickly, once he had an actual person to show him things, and he didn't need Hardison's help at all after a couple weeks.

After that, Nate never mentioned it again, but he seemed reasonably well-rested - or as well-rested as it ever got with Nate - so Hardison hoped it had helped.

It wasn't until the Denver job that he worked it out.

"Butler's cocky, self-publishes detective novels, thinks he's hot shit. What do we do? We flatter his inner Sherlock Holmes."

Sophie's eyes widened.

"We pull a Three Level Shimmy!"

Nate just nodded smugly, provoking a growl from Eliot.

"In English, for those of us who prefer just hitting people?"

Nate grinned.

"We approach with an offer. "Oh, hey, we heard about the campaign business, we want in." Wink wink, nudge nudge. Unfortunately, something sounds off, there's gaps in our cover story, he runs our IDs, they don't check out. He does some detective work, accuses us of messing him around, we crumble and confess to everything."

Nate looked pleased with himself and Parker frowned.

"Isn't that generally bad?"

Nate shook his head.

"Not this time. Once he thinks he's got us, he'll get sloppy. Won't realize it's just a second level of lies. Especially if the lie's to hide something sensitive."

For some reason he glanced towards Hardison when he said that. But that made no sense, Hardison hadn't -

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Nate was _good_. An asshole, but good, all the same.

The whole not sleeping thing had been level two. Nate had been conning him.

But then-

Nate caught his eye. God, was the mastermind _smirking?_

"Nobody guesses that there's a third level, trust me. Nobody."

Dammit, Nate.

He wanted to say something, but then were setting up, so Hardison had bad fake IDs to make and Nate was off with Parker, stealing them a senator.

As Hardison worked, though, he noticed something he'd missed before.

Sophie had a new scarf on. It was lightweight, but still substantial enough to look warm, soft and black and subtly textured. It wasn't fancy, but it looked well-made and elegant. It was exactly the sort of thing Sophie liked. It was also exactly the same pattern Nana had suggested Nate start out with.

Hardison shook his head in disbelief.

Nate had conned him, and all to hide the fact that he was making Sophie a present. It made sense. Eliot would have laughed in Nate's face, and Sophie could read Parker like a book. But Hardison has been an easy mark, so Nate conned him.

It was ... less surprising than it ought to have been, given literally every interaction he'd ever had with the man.

For a few minutes, it genuinely annoyed him, and he decided that he'd give Nate a piece of his mind next time he saw him. In the meantime, he photoshopped some regrettable facial hair onto Nate's new ID photo, paired with a ludicrous fake name.

Don't like your cover ID? That's what you get for being a lying liar who lies, Engelbert.

But then he turned and saw Sophie pull the scarf closer round her, the merest trace of a smile on her lips.

Hardison sighed.

He guessed there were worse things to have unwittingly facilitated.


	5. Chapter 5

It was almost a month later, and winter had most definitely set in, when a botched job led to Hardison being held hostage with a bunch of senior citizens.

Well, hostage was a strong word. But the guys running the nursing home had made it pretty clear that they didn't trust their new "assistant" as far as they could throw him, had had him followed the last time he left the home before the end of his shift, and had threatened to stage an accident if he were to, say, talk to anyone about their, uh, _unorthodox_ financial setup.

By which they meant that they were scamming the pensioners out of their life savings, of course. Gah, Hardison hated these people.

"I know, they suck. Just sit tight for now, keep an eye on whoever's entering and leaving the office," Parker's voice drifted over the comms. "We'll handle this."

Hardison groaned in frustration.

"I could be out there helping, and instead I'm stuck in here in sensible shoes and scrubs. They haven't even got reliable _WiFi_!'

"What a tragedy," Eliot butted in, sounding not in the least bit sympathetic. "Meanwhile, some of us have actual work to be doing, so get off the comms, and get back to serving Jell-O to old folks."

Well that was just unnecessary. Hardison huffed, but held his tongue.

"I wouldn't take it personal, you're doing a great job."

He jumped. Facing him was a little old lady who he could have sworn had been asleep mere moments earlier.

"I... uh... how much of that did you catch?"

"Oh, enough to know that they're scamming us," the white-haired lady confessed cheerily, "and enough to know that you aren't a real nurse."

Hardison's eyes widened.

"Uh, well, I mean I wouldn't... I'm not... I mean-"

"Ah, ah, ah," she shook her head. "None of that. I know you're trying to help us. I won't tell."

She beamed at him, a twinkly, kind-eyed smile, and Hardison felt himself relax. Eliot would never let him live this down, but at least his cover wasn't _totally_ blown.

"Cool, cool, cool, cool, you are a lifesaver, ma'am."

"Adelaide," she corrected. "You can call me Adelaide, young man."

"Hardison," Hardison replied, because she knew he wasn't a nurse anyway, so why not give her his real name at this point?

She smiled approvingly.

"Nice to meet you, Hardison. Now what were you saying about the WiFi?"

It turned out that Adelaide knew exactly where to get the best WiFi in the building - she had a smartphone that her grandson who lived out of state had given her, and was an avid viewer of Netflix.

"Can't really see the screen, mind you, but it beats the daytime TV they show in the lounge."

Hardison couldn't really argue with that, and soon he had his laptop out and connected to the WiFi - Adelaide was right that if you stayed near the window, it stayed connected pretty reliably - and was busy tracking the others.

He chatted with Adelaide as he worked. She was good company, full of stories about her work as a journalist, back in the day, and how she'd ended up marrying her photographer.

"Took three years to convince him I liked him as more than just a colleague, mind you."

Hardison chuckled, and she shook her head ruefully.

"Wasn't for lack of trying on my part, either. Sometimes that happens, though. You'd know all about that, eh?"

Hardison frowned, and turned away from the surveillance feed he was monitoring.

"Say what, now?"

"Whoever's on the other end of that microphone you keep muttering down," Adelaide said, as if it were obvious. "You clearly like them. I'd bet it's whoever knitted you that laptop case."

Hardison frowned. How had she - 

"I know a gift when I see one. Knitted my William a camera case, back when we were courting. You keep touching it when you're talking to whoever it is. I was a journalist, call it a hunch."

Hardison shook his head.

"It ain't like that, I just-"

But Adelaide cut him off.

'Whoever she is, she's a lucky girl."

Hardison shook his head, because the case, although it had just shown up in his room one day, wasn't nearly bright or eccentric enough to have been Parker's work.

"Nah, that's El- my partner's," Hardison shook his head, wincing at how he'd almost given Eliot's real name away. "He's a practical kinda guy."

If Adelaide looked surprised, it was only for a second.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she apologized, "I shouldn't have assumed. He's a lucky man, then, this El."

Hardison shook his head again, because that was not the point he'd been trying to make.

"No, no, we're not like that. We work together."

She chuckled lightly.

"Just like my William. And here I was thinking you had a good head on you. Look," she interrupted, as Hardison was about to correct her, "just wait and see. If he's serious, he'll make you something else, you mark my words. Took me three hats to win my husband over."

Unwillingly, Hardison's mind drifted to the hat Eliot had made him, all those months ago. He still had it - heck, he'd worn it that morning, it was tucked into his jacket pocket back in the breakroom as they spoke.

Adelaide was giving him a knowing look, one eyebrow raised, but before he could deal with the implications of that, his comms crackled back to life.

"Hardison? You there?"

"Uh, yeah, I'm here."

"Got a job for you - you think you can get into the main office?"

And then he had a nursing home office to break into, the con was back in motion and Hardison was too busy to get back to Adelaide on the matter of his love life.

He didn't even think about the conversation until that evening, as they celebrated the win at McRory's and Sophie announced that she was headed home.

"Big day tomorrow, and all that jazz," she explained, straight faced, and Hardison had to stifle a snort as he caught Parker's eye. Sure enough, five minutes later, Nate was also getting up to go.

Eliot rolled his eyes and Parker giggled as Nate made his excuses, but the mastermind didn't crack, just pulled his coat on and left, with a visible spring in his step.

Huh, Hardison thought. I guess the scarf really did the trick. That or the cover she made for his lockpick set. 

He was about to make a joke about it, when something stopped him - a glimpse of a now-familiar lime green, half hidden under Eliot's hair, perhaps, or the sight of Parker' fingers curled up in a new pair of chunky grey gloves. His hand drifted unconsciously to the jacket pocket where Eliot's hat was.

For a second, he accidentally looked Parker straight in the eye, where he could have sworn he caught a flash of the same knowing look that Adelaide had earlier, when she'd thought that-

But no. Surely not. Eliot knitted for everyone. Well, he knitted for Parker, at least. The gloves were proof of that. 

And Parker knitted for Hardison too. If you went up to Hardison's flat there was just as much of Parker's knitting as there was Eliot's - little Star Trek figurines and a Jayne hat and a House Dimir scarf, all sorts of nerdy stuff he didn't know he'd needed in his life. 

Parker knitted stuff for Eliot too - he had multiple brightly-colored scarves now, and an utterly impractical tasselled knife sheath. 

And Nate knitted for Sophie, and Sophie knitted for Nate and-

Oh, hell.

Oh, _hell_.

Now Parker was giving him a look, but then Eliot shot _her_ a look, and she stopped staring at Hardison to roll her eyes at the hitter. It was a weird little exchange, only it kind of wasn't, not if he was right, not if-

Hardison flushed, and scrambled to cover it up.

"Uh, anybody fancy another drink? On me, I owe y'all one."

Eliot was game and Parker nodded gladly, and Hardison went to order, glad of the excuse to turn his back on the two of them.

They were talking behind his back, he noticed, while he was at the bar. Talking _about_ him, he suspected, but they were polite enough not to bring it up once he brought the drinks over, and then he made the mistake of challenging Eliot to a game of pool, desperate for an excuse not to have to think about what he'd just realized.

The rest of the evening was spent being horribly beaten by the hitter - although Parker insisted that stealing the balls from off the table ought to count for _something_ \- and before Hardison knew it, the bar was closing, and they were all heading their separate ways.

Walking home in the cold, Hardison had time to do all the thinking that he'd been avoiding in the bar. Barely aware of his surroundings, he laid out the facts.

Eliot and Parker loved him.

They both seemed aware of this.

He didn't _think_ there'd been any jealousy in that look they'd exchanged. 

More just exasperation, really. Fond exasperation.

The pieces were all coming together into a coherent picture in the hacker's mind, when suddenly an icy gust of wind caught him by surprise. Without thinking, his hand slipped into his pocket, reaching for Eliot's hat. 

Pulling it on, he felt the same comfort he'd felt all those months ago, but then the wind got stronger, and he found himself shivering again. Frowning, he reached into his other pocket for Parker's scarf, winding it tightly around his neck. With the hat _and_ the scarf, the wind didn't bother him as much. He felt warm and protected and loved, and damnit, even _he_ could see the metaphor in that.

By the time he finally got into his apartment, he was cozy and snug, and he knew _exactly_ what to do. As soon as his coat was off, he had Google fired up.

"How to knit," he typed. The search results looked alarmingly technical, even with the background knowledge he'd picked up teaching Nate.

"How to knit easy," he adjusted. There you go. Much better.

He settled into his desk chair and clicked on a link at random.

"Ever wanted to knit things, but didn't know how to begin?"

Okay, promising start.

"If so, good news! Knitting is actually super simple, once you've got the hang of a few basic skills."

Yeah, that seemed about right from what he remembered.

"Before you begin, though, you're gonna need to gather your supplies: needles and yarn."

Ah.

_Damn._

He could have kicked himself. He'd been so eager to start, he'd missed the obvious issue. He didn't have needles. Or yarn. 

For a brief moment he was at a loss, but then the answer hit him - the stuff Parker stashed in Lucille! Would she have yarn? He thought he remembered spiking his hand last time he had to get something from the glove box, so he was pretty sure there were needles in the whole mess, somewhere, at least.

Not caring if he looked weird, Hardison dashed back down to the van, pulling the passenger door open and opening the glove box only to find -

A gift-wrapped package?

It was just sat there, exactly where Parker's stash had been last time he looked. He took it out and noticed that the gift wrap's pattern was actually that Fair Isle thing Eliot kept banging on about. The whole thing was... squishy?

Then a note tumbled out, written in familiar block capitals.

"For when you finally figure it out."

Suddenly the squishiness made sense, and as he tore off the paper, his suspicions were confirmed: three balls of blue yarn and another note, in the same writing as before.

"Parker hid the needles, have fun."

He could almost see Eliot shrug, mock-exasperated, as he was writing it. Hardison chuckled.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Parker's half of the gift proved elusive. It took Hardison a full hour and a half to find them, wedged under a floorboard he didn't even know was loose, along with yet another note, in Parker's loopy scrawl.

"Now go knit!"

Well, it'd be rude not to, Hardison thought, cradling the yarn to his chest, then dragging his laptop over to the couch and setting it down on the coffee table. Might as well get comfy.

The article from before blinked back at him, and now he'd scrolled down, that looked like an awful lot of diagrams, were they _sure_ it was super simple? It didn't look it, and for a second, his stomach twisted nervously. He just wanted to do a good job for them both, but what if-

Then he spotted a flash of neon yellow - the final note, stuck under the edge of the coffee table, barely visible. He reached for it.

"Quit worrying, you'll do great! P + E "

God, they knew him far too well.

Hardison grinned, despite himself, and got to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A longer, fluffy chapter to wrap up! Hope you all enjoyed! A massive thanks to all of you who commented - you're all great! - and to all of you more generally for putting up with multiple chapters of me obsessing about knitwear.


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